(Paris) A final parliamentary attempt to repeal the most contested measure of pension reform in France was defeated on Wednesday in the Assembly, further weakening the challenge initiated for five months in the street and in Parliament.
The President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, has indeed announced that she will brandish a little-used constitutional article to declare “inadmissible” the amendments tabled by a centrist opposition group and planning to restore the age of retirement at age 62, instead of the age of 64 introduced by the reform.
The use of this article 40, which prohibits any bill creating a burden on public finances, angered the opposition, who denounced a decision taken “under pressure from the executive” (center), “intended to prevent deputies from voting” (radical left), or “trampling on the Constitution” (extreme right).
“I apply the rule, nothing but the rule”, justified Mme Braun-Pivet, member of the presidential majority, who will formally activate article 40 on Thursday during the examination of the text in the hemicycle.
In fact, there will never have been a vote on pensions in the Assembly since the start of the debates in February on this emblematic reform of Macron’s second five-year term. Due initially to procedural maneuvers by the radical left opposition, then with the forceful passage of the executive, which used a constitutional article in mid-March to have the project adopted without a vote.
This failure in the Assembly comes the day after a day of mobilization in the street, the 14e since mid-January, which has sounded like the swan song of protest, with mobilization in sharp decline after monster demonstrations and spectacular strikes for several months.
“The match is ending, whether we like it or not,” admitted the head of the reformist union CFDT Laurent Berger on Tuesday.
France is one of the European countries with the lowest retirement age, but the systems are very different. The executive justified its project by the need to respond to the financial deterioration of pension funds and the aging of the population.